STL Game Jam 2011 – Day 3

It’s over.

I just yawned the biggest yawn I think I’ve ever yawned. This was my first time organizing, and it took a lot out of me. I’ve been running on caffeine pretty much all weekend, and as much fun as I’ve had I’m not sure my body could take another day of it.

But man, so much fun.

Before I get into my play-by-play I want to let you see some of the games. They’ll go up in the sidebar here later this week, but for now you can check them out at the Global GameJam site, right here:

http://www.globalgamejam.org/games/2011?tid[]=3783

Mine is Lil’Bro Vs Dinostuff, which I won’t link specifically because if you’re reading this you owe it to yourself to check out every game on there. Every group had a finished and fun game, and I’m proud of each one of them for really putting their hearts and brains into their games. Everyone’s got something awesome to show for it.

While I was taking my morning shower one of the groups texted me and asked if I could help them as soon as I got there. If you notice the late timestamp on yesterday’s blog now you’ve got your explanation. I was BUSY! Thankfully today we didn’t have to worry about wifi issues.

I was happy to oblige, and when I got there and sat down to help, I felt absolutely great when the fixes I needed to implement were legitimately hard problems to solve that I just happen to kick ass at solving. I fixed up their game in very little time, and then got back to my team and began working on stuff from our Kanban board.

At around noon people began grumbling about food. I stood up and reminded them that today’s lunch wouldn’t be provided, but they could get in with other people on some stuff. I  joked that if someone wanted to they could pay, and David Whatley, president of Simutronics didn’t hesitate to throw his hand up and offer. I’m not going to link my own game, but I will link his, and announce some pretty great news. This morning David found out that his game GeoDefense Swarm was named among the top 10 iPhone games of 2011 by Time Magazine. Great stuff! Great game! Thanks for the pizza!

The afternoon was a blur. I spent as much time as I could throwing in hacks to add crazy features into our game, and make it an actual game. At around 3:00 I stood up and asked if anyone was ready to upload. Only one team was, and they’d already uploaded. Being the loosely structured GameJam we had, I threw out a few words encouraging people to wrap up, then put my eyes back on the screen and got back to work.

When 4:00 PM came around I asked every team to start trying to upload their game. Most of the teams uploaded, including mine, but many also kept working.

By the time 5:00 PM rolled around almost everyone had an early version of their game uploaded and were either socializing or working on enhancements. I stood up and gave a short speech thanking everyone for coming out, talking about how awesome it is that everyone could come, and thanking Simutronics, the Webster Video Game Club, and the Webster SIGGRAPH group for the food. Just as my final thanks were uttered, the SIGGRAPH group walked in with dinner. Perfect timing!

We spent the next hour demoing all of the games on the computer lab’s projector. Since I spent most of my time working on my own game I hadn’t actually sat down and played many other people’s. I was blown away by what was being put on display. I expected a few totally janky projects, but everything was very solid and unique. My only complaint is that there are a few that I won’t be able to play myself because they’re on mac or iPhone.

When everyone was finished I talked a bit about the Meetup Group and showed off some of my past projects. I never did learn everyone’s name, but I did really enjoy getting to know everyone that I could, and I hope everyone keeps in touch.

If you were at the jam you should have my number and my e-mail, but you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Xbox Live as WesleyTE, PSN as SuperWes, and the internet at www.superwes.com. Add me to any and all, and keep in touch. Together we can make St. Louis the best place in the midwest to make games. See you in August for the Summer Jam!

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